Why are Kenyans still brilliant runners but disappointing footballers?

When Churchill was asked for the secret of his long and healthy life, he famously quipped: “No sport!” (that was Winston, not Kenya’s beloved entertainer). The British PM would have been a poor ambassador for the London Olympics, which just ended in great fanfare.

Today, many would challenge his perspective. Obesity is a massive problem in rich societies and rapidly becoming one in emerging economies too. As a result, heart disease and diabetes are also on the rise.

But for me, sport means so much more than just personal fitness. I practiced Judo competitively as a child, which helped me to stay focused, taught me important life skills –especially teamwork— and formed friendships that have lasted until this day. My passion for sport has been reenergized in Kenya, where you can be outdoors all day long and all year round… much better than sitting in front of the TV (football games excepted).

But at the macro level, is sport also contributing to national development? Does it help or hurt in building a nation and growing an economy?

Sport has a major symbolic value and shapes national self-perceptions. Sport, especially football, can unite countries. Germany’s victory at the World Cup in 1954 was associated with its economic re-birth and seen as a sign of national re-emergence: after the self-inflicted trauma of WWII, Germans could finally be proud of themselves again. Interestingly, the last time ”we” won the World Cup was in 1990, the year of German reunification.

Kenya’s runners, much like Germany’s footballers, have become the nation’s flag-bearers. They have made this country visible on the global stage and inspired a new generation of athletes.

At the London Olympics, Kenyans won eleven medals, two of them gold. Although more were expected, still Kenya remains the global powerhouse in running. Kenyan athletes are even starting to enter new areas in track and field (see Julius Yego’s remarkable performance in the Javelin). Many other countries can only dream of achieving Kenya’s Olympic performance. At the same time, Kenya is underperforming in many other sports, especially in the nation’s other favorite: football. Why such difference?

The most popular explanations for Kenya’s supremacy in running stress altitude, physical aptitude, and monetary incentives. Perhaps these are important, but they ought to apply to football as well. In the absence of solid research on the topic, let me propose three hypotheses, which also tie-in with social and economic development:

First, getting started in running is relatively straightforward and, more importantly, the start-up costs are minimal. To run, all you really need is a good pair of shoes: in fact many future stars even started-off barefoot when they were children. In football, you don’t need much to get started either (which helps to explain why developing countries are advancing much faster than in, say, fencing) but significantly more than for running: a ball, a pitch and fellow team members (which means you may need to commute if you live in a remote area). The best training for distance running is piling up mile after mile; for football top performance requires intensive skills-based drills delivered by qualified coaches from a young age. Football also requires continuous competitions to challenge players and teams, and football leagues are more difficult to set-up than road races. In football, raw athletic talent – which Kenya has an abundance of – will only get you so far if it isn’t converted into specialized skills through specialist coaching and management.

Second, success breeds success. Kenya’s top runners earn a very good living providing them, unlike some other folks back home, with a secure financial future. They are adored in their communities and a source of inspiration for the next generation. For many children, running seems like their best shot at moving out of poverty. In other words, successful role models who have succeeded at the highest level will help inspire other Kenyans to succeed – we need more examples like McDonald Mariga who was part of the Inter Milan squad when they won the Champions’ League in 2010.

Third, the middlemen and support structures are less important in running. Team sports demand a more complex organization and the governance environment matters more (not exactly an area of Kenyan strength). For instance, coaches may have some discretion and influence over the composition of running teams, but they just can’t impose a blatantly slow runner. In football, we’ve seen players go as far as paying the coach or federation to be allowed on the team. You can imagine what this does to team morale and performance. In addition, successful football nations invest heavily in intensive coaching for their young players, relying on football associations to effectively coordinate the training of several thousand coaches. This sort of complex coordination requires good governance. It is no coincidence that Africa’s best performing team at the last World Cup was Ghana, a country which has some of the highest scores in Africa on world governance indicators.

The good news is that Kenya’s policies have been improving in recent years, so football results should hopefully follow suit. This is because, with better policies, countries develop economically; better institutions are set up and a more vocal civil society demands good governance and accountability for all aspects of life, including sport. At least, that’s the theory. In practice, as Sepp Herberger (Germany’s legendary coach of the 1954 squad) put it: “The truth is always on the pitch”.

Comments

Any sport that requires nurturing or expensive equipment does poorly in Kenya. How come we have never participated in Tour De France, or Tennis or Swimming? How come we only excel in races of Endurance that require probably genetic conditioning and willpower to excel with no expensive equipment necessary?
The reason we dont excel in Football is we dont develop talent earlier in childhood. To have great football stars we need soccer academies that start with Kids from around the age of seven years.
*I just typed away, excuse the lack of flow.

"The best training for distance running is piling up mile after mile; for football top performance requires intensive skills-based drills delivered by qualified coaches from a young age" I think this argument is at best spurious and at worst condescending. Saying that running requires little skills and football requires plenty of skills is missing the mark. England has an elaborate youth football structure and system in place, but in international tournament despite the English Premier League being a magnate of super stars. That has not helped England be a football power house. Conversely, Ghana Ivory Coast which has over the years been performing better than even your Ghana, as well as Ghana and Cameroon, they are not known for having good governance that you alluded to in the case of Ghana. How about we throw in Brazil

Kenya is only good at long distance running. There is no correlation between football skills and long distance running. All the top runners in the men's 100 meters final were of West African origin. The most successful football teams from Africa are either from West or North Africa. Perhaps geography has more to do with it. China is as organized as they come as is Switzerland and the United States, yet none of them is a major powerhouse in football.
In the book "Outliers" Malcom Gladwell makes a clear point that success is not just about the individuals but the entire system going to genealogy and culture.
Kenyans who run and Kenyans who play football in the national team are largely from different cultures. Majority of the National football team are Luo, Luhya, Kikuyuy and a mixture from other tribes. The majority of those who win in athletics are Kalenjin. each set of cultures has a unique history and experience that gives them the innate talent to perform in their respective sports.
Even though there may be a correlation between how structured and organized a country's football system is, it is not necessarily the reason for it. Perhaps it is the result of it. Just like Kenya's athletics system is much better organized than most other similar and even more developed countries.

Indeed we do need more like Mariga and Dennis Oliech out there to champion the motivation to soccer in the country. The sad thing is that despite having every Kenyan soccer lover as a football coach, stating indeed how there needs to be change in the management, we go and employ a non English speaking coach to run the Harambee stars and pay him large sums yet we are do not want to grow talent to the sport.
With soccer i think is all about cohesion and skill, the more a team trains and plays together, the more cups we would expect to obtain. For this to happen we would need to at-least stop changing coaches like underwear. The players would need to be financially motivated and most of all, the players need to up their game

I think Shanta Devarajan analysis is flawed. If you look at South American countries you will see Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay were power houses in Soccer in an era when they were riddled with mass poverty. The footaballers in those countries had inborn talent.
Training alone is not enough to turn an average footballer/runner into a world beater. Brazil, German, Spain etc are good in soccer because they have a large pool of naturaly talented footballers and Kenya is king of road running because they have a large pool of naturally talented runners.